By the year 1522 Jacopco Carucci de Pontormo (1497-1557)
had achieved considerable success in Florence as a painter of religious
and secular scenes. However in that year, as the city experienced an
outbreak of plague, he took advantage of a timely commission from the Prior
of the Certosa de Gallazzo to to leave the city and paint a fresco cycle in the monastery's cloister.

Although direct documentation is sparse, the 16th century historian Giorgio
Vasari relates that Pontormo found the atmosphere of the monastery to his liking
and he lingered over the project for several years, reworking the frescos repeatedly
until he was fully satisfied.(Vasari,v.2,p.1527) When he was finished, the five
frescos included:
Christ in Gesthamene,
Christ Before Pilate,
Christ on the Road to Calvary, a pieta and
The Resurrection.

According to Vasari (in a tone both characteristically subjective and unusually critical),
Pontormo's treatment of the subject matter was lifted nearly wholesale from
Albrecht Dürer's Passion series published in 1511 and widely distributed throughout
Italy at this time. Other more recent scholarship attributes additional influences
more close at hand, such as the broadly popular book
Vita Christi,
written by a monk of the same Carthusian order as those in the Certosa, or the
frescos in Chiostro dello Scalzo by Jacopo's last master, Andrea del Sarto,
or almost certainly, the bronze reliefs by Donatello on the pulpit at San Lorenzo,
elements of which are plainly visible in the Christ Before Pilate fresco.(Giles,
34) But this treatment of Christ Before Pilate was not the only one he
considered, as evidenced by the black chalk drawing acquired by the Art Institute
of Chicago in 1989.(1989.187 [image])

This small drawing, approximately ten inches square, is not much more than a sketch;
an experimental exploration loosely rendered over a stylus incised guide
drawing. The study mixes figures modeled with stumping
that overlap other pentimenti, architectural elements and, in some cases,
previous versions of themselves. But Pontormo's mastery as a draughtsman is
shown by how it never loses a sense of itself.
It still remains both spatially credible and psychologically intense.

In the publication
The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies
(vol.17, no. 1), Laura Giles, Research Curator of Italian Drawings, makes a
compelling case for the sources of imagery in both the AIC study and the Certosa
frescos. However there is one aspect that can be called into serious question.
That aspect is the source of the scene which the study serves to illustrate.

In Ms. Giles' article she asserts that the fresco cycle derives its iconographic
structure from the Carthusian text,
Vita Christi. This is quite
credible due to both the philosophical relationship to the monastery and the
likely proximity of the book to Pontormo. On the other hand, she postulates
the source of the drawing as the 15th century devotional work,
Meditatione spore la pazzione del nostra signore Iesu Christo, which ultimately traces its roots to a 4th century apocryphal text,
The Gospel of Nicodemus, also known as
The Acts of Pilate.(Giles,34-35)

Within the Meditatione is the following passage, as paraphrased by Ms. Giles:

When Christ entered the Roman Govemor's palace,
twelve Imperial standards held by ensigns lowered
themselves of their own accord in homage to Christ,
whereupon all those assembled there were compelled
to kneel in worship. Beholding this spectacle, Pilate
became afraid and left the room.

There are three aspects that arouse my suspicion of this source: First, that this
text is not relevant to the Vita Christi that is asserted as the
conceptual basis for the cycle of frescos. Second, that there are no standards(flags)
visible in the drawing despite their central role in the story, and hence any
likely composition (there is one lightly drawn pentimenti to the left of Pilate
but this is, in another section of the article, described as a halberd
[image],
a description with which, in this discussion, I will concur). And third, those kneeling "in worship" are
not facing Christ, to whom the flags would have dipped in homage, but are clearly
turned towards Pilate.

In opposition to Ms. Giles' hypothesis I would like to offer my own: rather
than a source in an apocryphal text, I suggest that the scene derives from The
Gospel of St. John (1 9:4-9). This takes place after the scourging, in front
of the throng:

Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold,
I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then
came Jesus forth
wearing a crown of thoms, and the purple robe.
And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the Man. When the
chief priests therefore and officers saw him they cried out, saying Crucify
him, Crucify him, Pilate saith unto them, take ye him: for I find no fault in
him. The Jews answered him, We have a Law, and by our Law he ought to die, because
he made himself the Son of God. When Pilate therefore heard that saying
he was more the afraid, and went into the Judgment Hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence Art Thou?
But Jesus gave him no answer.

(italics added for emphasis)

This text not only fits the drawing, but also fits what I will show is a major
conceptual aspect of the Certosa Passion cycle as a whole.

First, a comparison of this section of all four Gospels reveals that John
is the only one where Christ appears before Pilate while wearing the purple
robe. Since he is clearly wearing a robe in the drawing, and since elsewhere
in the Gospels the point is made that his own clothing did not include a robe, it indicates
the likelihood of John as a source. If He is wearing the robe then He must also
be wearing the crown of thorns. A close examination of the manner in which the
different heads are drawn (as well as other Pontormo heads), reveals that the
complexity of the lines surrounding the head of Jesus is inconsistent with the
relatively controlled corrections he makes elsewhere. When looked at in relation
to the mark making on the other heads in this and other Pontormo Christ figure
drawings, it becomes more credible that these complex, interweaving lines describe
the crown of thorns, just where one would expect to find it.(see Cox-Rearick, no. 199)
Also, the kneeling figures would make much more sense facing Pilate if they
are read as Annas and Chaiaphas, the two chief priests mentioned in John, begging
that Christ be crucified for violating their law.

The next justification is a bit more elusive, but when taken in the context of the
preceding arguments it becomes one worth considering. This involves an
aspect of the Certosa cycle program as a whole and the criteria by which images
could be selected. The cycle consists of five frescos. In addition, there are
three known composition studies.(Giles, 37) Listed in their order in the Passion
story, and designated with an "F" for fresco and an "s" for study, they are:

F The Arrest (about to happen)

s Christ Before Pilate (about to enter Judgment Hall)

F Christ Before Pilate (about to wash hands)

F Road to Calvary (about to arrive)

s Nailing Christ to the Cross (about to be crucified)

s Deposition (after the crucifixion)

F Pieta (after the deposition)

F Resurrection (after the reanimation)

In 1-5 Christ is alive and is depicted in a scene where the important action is
about to happen. It is a state of narrative tension that invites the viewer to
complete the event. This is an altogether appropriate treatment for the
decoration of a contemplative order. In 6-8, after He has died, the point of view
shifts to the passive side of the event; the climax of the moment has passed. But
beyond the passivity is a subtler shift, the cycle "reanimates" and, in a sense,
comes full circle.

It is in view of this conceptual unity between the studies and the executed
frescos that I make my final argument against the apocryphal source of the AIC
study's subject matter. In the
Meditatione version, the critical
action has already taken place: Pilate has been cowed by the miracle and Christ
is worshiped in his presence. In
The Gospel of St. John version, the
action is still building to the climactic question: "Whence art Thou?"; Who
are you?

This is a compelling question. It resonates with Pilate's terror and desperation
of the situation as well as reflecting out to the reader to question their own
provenance. That this is a part of the program of the cycle is made clearer
by Pontormo's inclusion of the viewer in the observing throng and his engagement
of the viewers eye contact in both the fresco and the study. This is the same
technique he employed in his most famous painting,
Descent from the Cross
(1526-1528), where the character carrying the primary bulk of the dead weight
of Jesus looks accusingly at the viewer.

While I don't claim that this is a definative treatment of the issue, I hope
sufficient evidence has been presented to warrant further study into the actual
source of the Pontormo Christ Before Pilate study
owned by the Art Institute of Chicago.

Vasari, Giorgio, trans. by Gaston du C. De Vere, The Lives of the Most
Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (New York, 1979)

A note on other works consulted:

During the summer following the presentation
of this paper, I continued my research at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois,
where I consulted (with the assistance of a Latin instructor from St. Ignatius
Academy) their fifteenth century Genoese vulgate bible and the Meditatione
spore la pazzione del nostra signore Iesu Christo. Nothing in this later
research contradicted the conclusions drawn in this report.